It's over...

Wow. Four months later...here I am. I have to say honestly that a year and a half ago I would not have seen myself going abroad, but I'm definitely glad I did it. There's a sense of accomplishment when you've realized you've lived in another country, attended a different university, traveled a fair amount, and really stepped out of your comfort zone. Scratch that, there's a HUGE sense of accomplishment for me.
Sure, in the grand scheme of things, Ireland is not that much different from the United States; but baby steps, right? I don't think though that it would be easy for anyone to completely throw themselves into a new setting with a new group of people and no familiar faces, regardless of which country you're in. Maybe I didn't experience as much culture shock this time around, but who said I won't be traveling anymore?
You would think I'd have some big post to sum up all of the life lessons I've learned through my experiences in Europe, but the truth is I don't. (Ironically, I had saved this post as a draft and Miss Critchley decided to tell me she expected a post with, of all things, life lessons. Sorry Sarah!) All I can say is that when I look back through these posts I've written throughout the semester, I can see I've been through a lot. When I think back to the first few days that I was here, it seems like forever ago. I almost can't believe that I made it all the way through. I wish I could explain this better but I feel like you must study abroad yourself in order to understand what I'm trying to convey. To sum up, I've seen a lot of things, met a lot of people, and best of all I had a fantastic time doing it.
These past few days have been filled with packing, cleaning, and saying goodbye to my friends. As excited as I have been for a couple of weeks to go home, I now have mixed feelings about leaving. I never thought that I would be as close as I was with the people in my study abroad group, and I also never thought I would be as sad as I was to see people go.
Some of the people I was abroad with this semester will be lifelong friends. Some I may never see again. But to all of the Butler kids, I love you guys and I wish you all the best. You all are the reason my experience in Ireland was so amazing and I wouldn't want to be here with anyone else. I hope that we are all able to be together again one day. I miss you already.

So with that, I bid the Emerald Isle farewell. USA, here I come!

Palma de Mallorca

To start, I must explain that Mallorca is a Spanish Island situated between Spain (to the west) and Algeria (to the south) in the Mediterranean Sea. It is home to many Germans and Algerians as well as the Spanish themselves, and proves to be a very touristy place with its hostels and restaraunts lining the coast of a cove in a city called Palma.

Here is a brief recap of the week first:

Saturday: Touched down in Palma and immediately took cabs to our hostel. Found that our "room" was actually an apartment-style living quarters complete with a kitchen (no oven and only two burners on the stove but hey, I can't complain), 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, and of course a balcony. Even better than this was the fact that we were literally like 100 feet from the shore of the Mediterranean. Perfect. Dinner and drinking on the balcony completed our first night.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday & Thursday: Hung out on the beach. The weather was around 22C most of the time we were there and there was a nice breeze over the shoreline so it was a pretty perfect time to sit on the beach all day. Our routine was to get there around 11am, lay around, play soccer, take a dip in the water (disclaimer: if you ever go to Palma, or presumably anywhere in the Mediterranean, BEWARE OF JELLYFISH. There were too many to count when we were there. Seriously.), lay out more, go home to shower, and get dinner. It. Was. Awesome. Sunday I think was the only day when we started out our morning by walking the strip along the beach, which is actually where I got my sunburn from. Other than that, pale Kate only got a little color because she was a good kid and used SPF 40.
Wednesday: Decided to break up the beach routine by renting bikes for a couple of hours, costing us around 4 euro. It was probably the best decision that we made the entire trip, even though my butt felt like it was bruised for about 3 days afterwards due to extremely hard seats. It was a fantastic way to see more of the coastline, though. We broke up into groups, so four of the guys and I went over to the southeast side of the cove, which turned out to be much more hilly and less populated than the northwest side. We went as far out to the tip of the cove as humanly possible before riding downhill the entire way back to the rental shop. It was a fantastic workout and we deservedly collapsed on the beach after returning our bikes.
Friday: The other three girls and I took a bus into city center to explore a little bit. We had heard that there was great shopping in the area, but to our dismay discovered it was closed due to the Spanish Labor Day, I believe (Sarah -- true?). Nevertheless, we were able to walk around and check out the Palma Cathedral before sitting down to a nice lunch and finally heading back to the hostel. From there it was the typical dinner and drinks on the balcony night we'd been having all week, followed by pictures on the beach at sunset.

Highlights of the week: biking, Del Sol restaraunt, tequila (eek), cheap and delicious gelato, beach, soccer, the balcony, and a serious bonding experience with the 9 other people on the trip.

We returned yesterday, and as we landed it was freezing and pouring rain. Welcome back to Ireland. We did, however, see a triple rainbow on the way home, so that was pretty cool.

It's so weird to think that I will be returning to the states in just over two weeks. All that stands between me and that plane ride on Aer Lingus home is a week off and then four finals. Wow. Yikes.

Anyway, I will throw a link in here when the pictures have been added on facebook, I've just been waiting to steal more from people since my stupid camera died.

Mallorca Bound

Well, not yet...but I will be in like 6 and a half hours!!!

Here is the link to the dance video...you have to be friends with me on Facebook to see it, but I think everyone who reads this blog is: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/video/video.php?v=518120799956&ref=mf

It's really slow, but it kind of showcases the basic steps of Irish set dancing (three step, seven step, and a little tap)

I went to watch my housemate Ciara in her performance ensemble the other day (she's a flute player who apparently has played a gig with the Chieftains before...). We also watched competition dancers who are first year dance majors at UL...and they were AMAZING. It was really intimidating. These girls were just all over the stage. There was also one guy, and apparently he danced with Riverdance recently. Pretty amazing, huh?

Also, I have a job! YAY! Talk about stress relief. Now onto VACATION!!! Be back in a week!

The Last Week of Classes

So, it's the last week of classes, and it has been uneventful thus far. That being said, there is a lot to come: the Bon Voyage dinner tomorrow night, dance recital on Wednesday, handing in my very last paper on Friday, finding out if I have a job, and Spain on Saturday!!! It's weird to think that I'll be back for just over 2 weeks when I return from Spain, seeing as there won't be much going on when I get back. I have another week off (study time!) before my exams, which last over the course of a week, and then exams for a week. I'm sure it'll all go by really quickly, but right now it doesn't feel like it. Weird.
There's not much to report other than that...our dance will be taped (yikes) so that will be online soon.

This One's For You, Sarah Critter

Hello all of my (like, 7) readers! Apologies for the lack of posting, I just hadn't had much to write about for a bit and then I got busy all of a sudden, but I will update you on the goings-on in Limerick and elsewhere. You have to admit though, I was doing pretty well on the posting till the last few weeks. I'll just blame it on the fact that I had schoolwork for the first time all semester and was doing that instead. Thank Sarah for giving me the kick in the arse to post something though!

So on March 30th, my family came to visit me! Let me just state here that they came during the drunkest college week of the year, known as RAG week. RAG, I learned, stands for "Raise-A-Grand". While the official purpose of the week is to raise money for charity, the Irish use it as a week to drink (surprised?). Every college has a RAG week at a different time, and essentially everyone just gathers on one campus and goes absolutely crazy. Most people don't go to classes, they just drink their lives away all day. Literally. I'm fairly certain that all of my (18 year-old) Irish housemates were drunk for the entire week. This is not an exaggeration.

Anyhow, when my family arrived on Tuesday my parents came and picked me up once I was out of class and brought me to Adare for the night, where they stayed in this absolutely fabulous villa. At some point I'll have to steal pictures from them so you all can see but it was really very nice. We just hung out that night, and then I had to go back for class all day the next day.
On Wednesday, my family went to the Cliffs of Moher (and I believe by the Burren as well?) while I was in class, and then came and got me so we could go to dinner at a real Irish pub, Dolan's. Unfortunately, there was no music that night because there was a match on, but at least my family got to go to one traditional pub while they were here.
Thursday after class I took the family down to Limerick to look around and I got a chance to show off a bit of my navigation skills (note: I have absolutely no sense of direction but I can get around Limerick fairly well now) and we just essentially explored the town a bit and did some shopping. We then ended up at the Mill Bar that night I believe (my father's favorite place) and then I was dropped off back at Cappavilla so I could take my sister out for the night. It was a grand time...we went to the usual club I go to, called the Lodge, with a couple of my American friends and then met up with some of my Irish ones as well. It was especially funny because most of the people I was with that night were closer to Kara's age than mine.
On Friday I was picked up nice and early (due to a cancelled class) and we went to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park over in County Clare. The castle was brilliant and the folk park had some very nice grounds that we could explore. I think apart from the castle my favorite part was the pigs that were running around in their little area. I believe my parents have pictures of this so I will steal them when I get the chance. I then left Cappavilla for the weekend to stay with my family in Adare.
On Saturday we went to Cork City, about 2 hours south of us. There's great shopping down there, and we spent the afternoon walking around and taking pictures as well.
Sunday we walked the grounds of Adare Manor (really class) and took some pictures of the gardens and whatnot. The Manor was absolutely gorgeous, as you can see from my pictures. This was the only day I think I actually had my camera with me. After a walk on the grounds we went to King John's Castle in Limerick City. It's actually really cool because you go through a mini museum where they tell you a bit of the history of the castle, and then you can go out into the courtyard and up to the towers to look over the city. I think my favorite part though was the excavation site, where they found 800 year-old sunken houses under the castle. Really quite cool.
Monday was the last full day that the family was here, so we took our time getting out of Adare and then went back to campus so I could show everyone where my classes were and such. I'm not sure that anyone took pictures but I will be sure to before I leave, because I think UL is a nice-looking campus (I think the fam will agree with me on this).

I stayed in Cappa on Monday night since the family was leaving early the next morning, and then stayed by myself for the next few days watching all of the episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (yes, I watch that show now) and writing my paper that is due tomorrow. I'm so glad I did it early because all of my friends that came back from their trips are pulling all nighters tonight to get it done.

On Saturday I went up to Galway to stay with my housemate Ciara for the weekend. She lives about 15 minutes outside Galway City, so when I arrived we walked around for a bit before going to her house. The city is absolutely gorgeous and I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to go up with my family, but that's alright. It was really nice though. We also went to her Auntie's house in the city to visit for a bit, and she gave me a chocolate bunny for Easter!! It was very cute. We went to the "Tav" that night for Ciara's friend's album launch party and while the music was not really my style it was still a lot of fun. We sat and had a few pints and rocked out to their music with all her friends, and I got to see my other housemate Libby which was great. We returned to her house round 1am and then went back out to the pub down the street (literally a 30-second walk) to meet up with her dad and uncle. Her dad was pretty drunk by the time we got there, but he was great to talk to. It was funny because I had a hard enough time understanding him without the drunken slurs, so the alcohol didn't really help me in that sense. We had a couple pints there with him though before we went home at half four (can you believe it?).
Sundays are quite lazy for the Irish, I've noticed, as nobody was out of bed before half twelve the next day. Even though it was Easter Sunday, her family expressed no interest in going to Easter Mass, which I found a bit ironic since Ireland is supposed to be so Catholic. I've been told though that many people consider themselves Catholic, but never really go to mass. We had a nice little breakfast and a shower before Ciara's friend Natasha came, and then her dad took us out to Cong to see Ashford Castle. We took a walk for a couple of hours, and then drove around the countryside for awhile. It was magnificent. There were some really huge hills that we drove around as well as a lake (see my photo album). We made a couple of stops along the way to get out and take pictures (at which time Natasha and Ciara would yell "TOURIST!!!" at me). We didn't return home till around 8, had dinner, and then Ciara and I went out to Ballinrobe in County Mayo with a bunch of her friends. We went to the Tav first to see the pig roast, and then ended up taking like an 18-seater cab or something to Ballinrobe, where it seemed everyone they went to school with was. We stopped at a bar to have a couple of pints and talk with people before going to the Valk Nightclub down the street. Talk about crazy. We even ran into a couple of teachers at the Valk, probably in their late twenties, who were just as drunk as anyone else in the place. It was an interesting thing to see, for sure. Ciara and I ended up staying at her friend Gillian's house that night, since her house was fairly far away.
Today was another lazy day, as we got up at twelve and went back to her house for breakfast, showers and packing so we could come back to UL, and now here I am! I haven't got a lot coming up in these next couple of weeks, as I only have 9 days of class left (!!!!!!!!!!!!). I am going to Spain on the 25th though so I will probably update once more before I leave.
The weekend overall was grand. Ciara's family was so welcoming and friendly and I just felt like I was at home by the second day I was there. They were also interested in what I was doing with my schooling and such, and we were able to talk a lot about that. If I get the chance, I will absolutely go back and visit them.

Album from when the family was here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011758&id=1083330009&l=028a81b284
Album from Galway: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012078&id=1083330009&l=42273b9acf

Ronan O'Gara, You Are A Legend

For those of you who don't know, Ireland had a huge victory on Saturday.

For the first time in 61 years, the Irish National Rugby Team clinched not only the Six Nations Championship but also the Triple Crown and the ever-elusive Grand Slam!

Six Nations Tournament: A tournament comprised of six European nations - Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, and Italy. In the spring each year, these six teams compete in a tournament to determine which country has the best rugby in Europe. This championship is not based on one single game, but rather a points system based on wins and losses. Whichever team has the most points at the end of the tournament wins. This year, in winning the Six Nations, Ireland has become more recognized as among one of the best rugby teams in the world. It was their first championship win since 1985.

Triple Crown: The Irish team won all of their games against the other three teams competing for the Triple Crown - Scotland, England, and Wales.

Grand Slam: Probably the most distinguishable award of the tournament. Ireland went undefeated in the tournament for the first time since 1948.

For all of you rugby fans out there (Calvin), I'll give a quick rundown of the game.
Wales came out with a 6-0 lead in the first half off of two penalty kicks, and Ireland remained scoreless until the first minutes of the second. Halftime did the Irish well, as they came out of the gates flying and scored two tries and connected on both kicks to make the score 14-6 (one try was off a beautiful kick to the wing and the other off a steal from the Wales backline). Wales clawed their way back with a series of penalty kicks (stupid British sir) to make the score 14-12. Wales couldn't miss; they were scoring from at least 45m every time...one kick was even 57m!! Then, to Ireland's horror, Wales scored on a conversion with five minutes left to take the lead 15-14. Ireland kicked off, regained possession of the ball, and advanced the ball with crashes by the forwards for several phases. FINALLY, with just over 2 minutes remaining, the ball swung out to the backs and none other than Ronan O'Gara scored on his own conversion, regaining the lead for Ireland at 17-15. Just when we thought Ireland was safe, the sir called a (pardon my French) BULLSHIT penalty at the 48m in the center of the field and awarded a kick to Wales with just ten seconds left in the match. Galven Henson hesitated, and missed the kick short by about a foot. The uproar in the pub was insane; even I was jumping up and down and screaming with everyone.

It was definitely one of the most memorable moments I have ever had in Ireland so far.

Paris and Paddy's Day

Hello all! I'm finally back from Paris (well, I got back at about 1am on Monday...)

Let me say first of all that there is no way in hell anyone would ever be able to cover even all of the main attractions of Paris in 4 days. Even though Annie and I started our days at 8am each morning and ended at 2am each night, we did not even come close to seeing everything, but we certainly did see a lot. I will give you a day-by-day breakdown of what happened:

Thursday: Upon arrival in Paris, we immediately found our hostels. Well, Annie found hers right away, and then we spent an hour or two looking for mine because it was on some tiny unmarked side street. After check-in, we made our way down to Cafe Luna for dinner and then up to Avenue Clichy to see the Moulin Rouge and the rest of the sex district. After our tour there, we attempted to make our way over to the Arc de Triomphe. I should mention here that if you ever go to Paris and you run into women who are asking you if you speak English, you should either ignore them or look confused and shake your head. If you answer yes, they will hand you a card and hound you for money. I was advised of this before I went, and I'm glad I was because the place was swarming with them. Anyway, back to the story: Being the cheapskates that we were, we didn't want to take the Metro everywhere so we decided to walk. It turns out that Paris is an extremely large city and the distances on the maps are deceiving. Not only that, but we had a really hard time navigating around that area so it took us a good three hours to finally find it, take pictures, and walk back. We finally returned home with plans to wake up at 7.
Total walking time for Thursday: 7 hours

Friday: After waking up at 7, falling back asleep, and getting up at 8, we took our time getting out of the hostel and finally left at 10am for The Louvre. This meant taking an hour stroll to the Arc de Triomphe, taking daytime pictures, and then walking down the Boulevard de Champs to the museum. On the way, we ran into some really awesome structures, such as a monument reminiscent of the Washington monument, but with heiroglyphics on it (turns out it was a gift from the Eqyptians, as we would later learn) and a fountain. We took more pictures and then proceeded into The Louvre, which consists of walking through a pretty large park before actually getting there. We then spent 9 hours exploring paintings by the Italians and French, as well as sculptures by the Egyptians and Greeks and other artifacts. I was able to see such famous works as the Mona Lisa, Orphan Girl (for all of Motter's Philosophy students out there!), and the Nike of Samothrace. We also had the opportunity to see a few paintings by Monet, which were absolutely breathtaking. It was unfortunate not to be able to read about any of the works, as everything was in French. That being said, The Louvre was the experience of a lifetime. Even though we spent so much time in the museum, we really only got to about 1/4 of it (if that) but the things we did see we were able to explore fairly thoroughly. After leaving The Lourve we went to dinner and did some more exploring around the city and then back to my hostel, where we again arrived at 2am.
Total walking time for Friday: 11 hours

Saturday: After waking up nice and early yet again, Annie and I left the hostel at 9 because we had big plans for the day. We ate breakfast outside at a little cafe (very French of us) and then made the long trip to Notre Dame, stopping along the way at the Republique. The walk to the Notre Dame ended up being about 2 hours, as we got sidetracked for about 20 minutes at some little shops. When we got there though, the walk had been well worth it. We were able to take a free tour through the massive cathedral, which was just amazing. I'm not sure if I can put into words how incredible that church was. I suppose I'll let the pictures do the speaking for themselves. Post-tour we decided to stay for the 6:30pm mass, which was all in French, but being raised Roman Catholic I was able to follow along reasonably, so that was cool. After mass we took a walk along the Seine looking for boat tours for the next day, and then headed to the Eiffel Tower. I would like to be the first to say that I have a weird obsession with it, because I must have taken 50 pictures of the tower alone. It really is glorious at night though. We had the chance to see it do its little light show that it does every night. We only took a quick visit at the tower before taking the two-hour walk home, since we wanted to have some energy to go up it the next day.
Total walking time for Saturday: 8 hours

Sunday: Sunday morning we met up at 8 at the Moulin Rouge and took our last visit to the Arc de Triomphe before our tour of the Eiffel Tower. We only had to wait in line for the tower for about 20 minutes (I think we just got there early enough) and took the elevator up to the second level. We were disappointed that the very top was closed due to construction, but I was secretly happy because the second level was definitely high enough for me, and we weren't even halfway up. Looking out into Paris from the tower was probably the highlight of my trip. The city stretched on for forever and there was so much to see. I think that one of the cool things about Paris is that it lacks the skyscrapers of the American cities; instead, you can see out for miles and buildings just kind of pop up in random places. It really is a sight to see. We spent about an hour up on the second level taking pictures and then decided to take the stairs down instead of the elevator. That scared me more than anything even though we were caged in. I had previously described to Annie that being on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower was "cartoonishly high" and that it wasn't as scary. However, upon climbling down the tower, I found myself gripping the rails tighter and tighter because I realized just how high up we actually were. Needless to say, it was a relief to step onto the pavement. We then took some pictures in front of the tower and headed down to the Seine for our boat tour. It was alright, but we realized we had already seen everything that they were showing us. We did enjoy being able to sit back and relax on the boat, although we both ended up a bit sunburned from it. After the boat trip we hopped on the Metro back to the Le Palais des Congres de Paris in order to catch our shuttle to the airport. After a hellish trip home (not something I would like to relive on this blog...) we finally made it back here.
Total walking time for Sunday: 6 hours

Total walking time in Paris: approximately 32 hours

Yesterday was Paddy's Day, as you probably all know. Whoever said the Irish don't do Paddy's Day was an absolute liar, because I have never seen a crazier celebration. I won't go into much detail unless asked to, but essentially the day boiled down to us getting up at 7:30 for car bombs and beruit (the other Americans here call it beer pong but that's wrong, obviously. There's an ongoing debate about it.) and then the parade at noon. Though the parade was unimpressive, the Irish definitely took the drinking part of the holiday seriously, as did we. Post-parade I went back to bed for a bit, woke up around 4, went back out to some random party, came home, drank like 3 liters of water, did an assignment, Skyped my family (I was sober), and went to bed. It was a long day.

Anyway, that's about it. I have 4 albums from Paris up if you want to check them out.

Album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010347&id=1083330009&l=8687117449
Album 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010350&id=1083330009&l=757e5146dd
Album 3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010363&id=1083330009&l=6e4a00960e
Album 4: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010365&id=1083330009&l=6ef7a602d3